Part 17

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God! I will pack, and take a train, And get me to England once again! For England's the one land, I know, Where men with Splendid Hearts may go; And Cambridgeshire, of all England, The shire for Men who Understand; And of THAT district I prefer The lovely hamlet Grantchester. For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile; And Royston men in the far South Are black and fierce and strange of mouth; At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington, And Ditton girls are mean and dirty, And there's none in Harston under thirty, And folks in Shelford and those parts Have twisted lips and twisted hearts, And Barton men make Cockney rhymes, And Coton's full of nameless crimes, And things are done you'd not believe At Madingley on Christmas Eve. Strong men have run for miles and miles, When one from Cherry Hinton smiles; Strong men have blanched, and shot their wives, Rather than send them to St. Ives; Strong men have cried like babes, bydam, To hear what happened at Babraham. But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester! There's peace and holy quiet there, Great clouds along pacific skies, And men and women with straight eyes, Lithe children lovelier than a dream, A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream, And little kindly winds that creep Round twilight corners, half asleep. In Grantchester their skins are white; They bathe by day, they bathe by night; The women there do all they ought; The men observe the Rules of Thought. They love the Good; they worship Truth; They laugh uproariously in youth; (And when they get to feeling old, They up and shoot themselves, I'm told) . . .

Ah God! to see the branches stir Across the moon at Grantchester! To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten Unforgettable, unforgotten River-smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees. Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand Still guardians of that holy land? The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream, The yet unacademic stream? Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool, Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill? Say, is there Beauty yet to find? And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?

Fafaia

Stars that seem so close and bright, Watched by lovers through the night, Swim in emptiness, men say, Many a mile and year away.

And yonder star that burns so white, May have died to dust and night Ten, maybe, or fifteen year, Before it shines upon my dear.

Oh! often among men below, Heart cries out to heart, I know, And one is dust a many years, Child, before the other hears.

Heart from heart is all as far, Fafaia, as start from star.

Saanapu, November 1913.

Appendix

NOTE

The Appendix contains: (1) the only two coherent fragments found in the notebook which Brooke used in the last month of his life; a little song, written, I think on his travels; and a poem, dating probably from 1912, which for some reason he left unrevised; (2) a few "lighter" poems which I dare say he would have printed on their merits if he had published a volume in which they would not have been out of key. Two of these, the "Letter to a Live Poet" and "The Little Dog's Day," were written for Westminster Gazette competitions, in which they won prizes. Edward Marsh

Fragment

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped In at the windows, watched my friends at table, In the windows, watched my friends at table, Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway, Or coming out into the darkness. Still No one could see me.

I would have thought of them --Heedless, within a week of battle--in pity, Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness And link'd beauty of bodies, and pity that This gay machine of splendour 'ld soon be broken, Thought little of, pashed, scattered, . . .

Only, always, I could but see them--against the lamplight--pass Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass, Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave's faint light, That broke to phosphorus out in the night, Perishing things and strange ghosts--soon to die To other ghosts--this one, or that or I.

April 1915.

The Dance

A Song

As the Wind, and as the Wind, In a corner of the way, Goes stepping, stands twirling, Invisibly, comes whirling, Bows before, and skips behind, In a grave, an endless play--

So my Heart, and so my Heart, Following where your feet have gone, Stirs dust of old dreams there; He turns a toe; he gleams there, Treading you a dance apart. But you see not. You pass on.

April 1915.

Song

The way of love was thus. He was born one winter morn With hands delicious, And it was well with us.

Love came our quiet way, Lit pride in us, and died in us, All in a winter's day. There is no more to say.

1913 (?).

Sometimes Even Now . . .

Sometimes even now I may Steal a prisoner's holiday, Slip, when all is worst, the bands, Hurry back, and duck beneath Time's old tyrannous groping hands, Speed away with laughing breath Back to all I'll never know, Back to you, a year ago.